Get Started IoT Network #6: Logistics

The 6th meeting of this year’s first Get Started IoT Network was all about smart logistics and dealt with the overall question: how will logistics evolve in the future? According to our four speakers, the core services pushing the development will be provided by technologies such as IoT and machine learning, which will essentially change future transport possibilities.

Smart solutions

The event was kicked off by Franz Hero, Senior Vice President and responsible for Head Supply Chain & Logistics Development at SAP. He understands the integration of IoT and machine learning as necessary in order to use the full capabilities of smart logistics. However, the biggest current challenge lies in scaling when connecting sensors for supply chains.

Another difficulty in the field of transport is identified by Bastian Burger, CEO & Co-founder of blik.io and last year’s winner of our Innovators’ Pitch for IoT. He explains that 33% of every tracking process consists of scanning barcodes. With a focus on intra-logistics, Blik provides own sensors with a patent-pending technology solution to track goods without the necessity to manually scan barcodes.

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MyRailportal and similar applications will form our future transportations in the eyes of Dr. Eric Pfaffmann from DB Cargo. With the help of IoT and track & trace for wagons, the so-called “wagon intelligence” will make estimated times of arrival more precise than ever and allow additional services to the customers. DB Cargo plans on providing every single owned waggon with sensors for e.g. humidity, temperature and dew point up until 2020 – meaning more than 70.000 in total.

The work of the final speaker of the day, Marian Pufahl from Synfioo, also deals with accurate predictions of arrival times. He explains that the influence of diverse external disruptions, like weather or strikes, make precise arrival estimations hard. Taking into account such disruptions, Synfioo created a smart solution to render predications more and more accurate in the future.

As always, there was enough time afterwards to discuss more questions with the speakers and network over coffee and breakfast.